Runze WANG et Cheng XU

The In-Betweens: the Chinese Immigrant Writings and Inter-Cultural Communication

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1Abstract: The Chinese immigrant writings have their literature or aesthetics features on inter-cultural communication. David Henry Hwang, Ha Jin, and others all contributed to the development of immigrant writings, as they commonly enhanced the value of the immigrant writers who improved the communication between China and the West. This paper mainly adopted the textual analysis to research the books of immigrant writers, combined with the qualitative analysis of relative documents or archives. This paper summarized that the inter-cultural writings of Chinese immigrants produced a bridge-building effect that may transcend the purely individualized or collectivist discourse.
Key Words: In-between, Immigrant, Inter-culture, Communication
Résumé : Les œuvres des immigrés chinois présentent des caractéristiques littéraires ou esthétiques dans la communication interculturelle. David Henry Hwang, Ha Jin et d’autres ont contribué au développement de la littérature des immigrés, parce qu’ils ont contribué ensemble à valoriser les écrivains immigrés et à promouvoir les échanges sino-occidentaux. Le présent article s’appuie principalement sur une analyse de texte pour étudier les écrits des écrivains immigrés, ainsi que sur une analyse qualitative des documents ou archives pertinents. Selon cet article, l'écriture interculturelle des immigrés chinois a un effet de pont qui peut aller au-delà du discours strictement individuel ou collectif.
Mots clés : Intermédiaire, Immigration, Interculturalité, Communication

Introduction

2Growing up in the Chinese Mainland, the immigrant writers serve out their apprenticeship to start the career since the 1970s. These talents not only master the difficult art of making the kind of sound that other people could bear to listen to but also were trained to hold an inter-cultural viewpoint on describing the ways in which we come to be a fully Chinese. Through the professional writer voice of one of the immigrants remembering her time growing up in China, the reader may gradually learn that the cultural differences between Chinese and theirs have been generated in many aspects, manufactured to provide special parts for ‘Chinese’ in the world. Among the writings, the narrative usually deploys flashback and hindsight in order to raise complex questions concerning the relationship between memory, reality, universal and nationality. These topics are discussed through the negotiation between realist and fabulist codes, so stark in their writings, which has been a consistent preoccupation from the start of the career.

3Generally, the Chinese immigrant writings gain disorientation by the way the two categories of space and time are shown to be inseparable. The concept of Chinese new immigrant writers mainly referred to the writers who started their careers in the Chinese Mainland and came abroad after the 1970s. In terms of their writing features, the Chinese new immigrant writers held different ways from the elder: they usually undertook the memory of collective life in the mainland, and they kept a controversial attitude towards their motherland and their new settlement. This paper( Wang and Liu, 2015) focuses on the Chinese new immigrant writers and some of the Chinese American immigrant writings, to depict the features of Chinese immigrant writings. The main research objective is for deciphering the feature of the in-betweens by the textual analysis methods.

4This paper mainly takes the textual analysis, combined with qualitative analysis, to conduct the analysis on the works of Chinese Americans, or the writings of some new immigrant writers. This research method is of cultural history study, of which the aim is to comprehensively explain the academic value and research significance. Meanwhile, cultural history study methods, unified with the literary history research methodology, would help judge the artistic characteristics and status of the works among the new immigrant writers. Meanwhile, on the basis of comprehensive analysis, the best version and the first-hand literature with new material value would be well based on the theory of literature and art. Moreover, the research ought to be connected to the cross-cultural theory and the research value.

5This paper has two different parts: Firstly, the analysis of writings has been put aside, as the Chinese immigrant writers deciphered the concept of “the Other” in his writings (Pfefferkorn, 2011). There are many critical responses to writings, thoughts on selfhood are all embodied in the role, plot design proposed by Chinese immigrant writers. In this part, Yellow Face written by David Henry Hwang depicted the cross-cultural view and thoughts of Chinese immigrant writers. Secondly, this kind of writing is living between history and literature, while cultural research on Barthes’s theory has been put into the study on immigrant writers. The theory in Barthes’s book, Le Degré Zéro De l'écriture, commonly explained the essence of the immigrant writers’ viewpoint. In aspects of egotism, Whitehead(1992) thought that the immigrant literature and its features tried to give a new explaining way for historical writings, memory gathering and expression in books.

6The Summary of the paper is that the transnational writings of Chinese immigrant writers produced the bridge-building effects here. Additionally, the attempt to decipher the in-between condition in Chinese immigrant writings can provide a useful solution to the dilemma of Chinese literary writing, as the Chinese immigrant writings fully reflected the collective life and adopted a special narrative strategy. Actually, the writing method here expresses an individualized way, which also helps to transcend the purely individualized discourse or collectivist expression.

the Homeward Writings: Between home and homeland

7Since the 1970s, new immigrant writers from mainland China have attracted readers’ attention with unique intercultural features: immigrant writers abroad always remain in a state of homelessness, which has, on the one hand, become an essential enlightenment for immigrant writers’ literary creation and, on the other hand, come into their main driving force to survive in the U.S. The issue ‘home’ in their works symbolizes the authors’ attitudes toward the past. In fact, writers expound common problems of immigrant life in the manner of the cultural mixture, discuss common experiences of new immigrant writers, and illustrate the cultural significance of ‘home’ for new immigrant writers. The production of this paper, along with the researcher's passion for ‘Home’, would help explain which objects were chosen as suitable for cultural history research in this field, as well as the qualities that were valued by new immigrant writers.

8Various diaspora forms come into being after immigrants walk across national boundaries. Robin Cohen, in his book Global Diaspora: An Introduction, summarizes them into five categories: the first is victim diaspora, mainly represented by African diaspora suffering from slave trade and Armenian diaspora suffering from war massacres; the second is proletariat diaspora, in which case immigration usually result from the establishment of labor relations, including Indian contractual workers who worked in British and French plantations in the colonial period; the third is trade diaspora, including today's skilled migration, which tends to occur among business community and intellectual community; the last is cultural diaspora and the diaspora in the era of globalization. These diaspora forms usually discuss the social identity of immigrant groups from a macro perspective.

9Writers who immigrate to the west from the third world almost face the same trouble: they need to think about their own cultural identity in their writing and to view the mixture of culture from a new perspective in a new cultural context. Researchers need to define intercultural identity as an extension of cultural identity, which can reflect two communication parties’ ability to not only integrate different cultures but also correctly view interaction and association of identity on the basis of understanding individualization and universalization of identity. Diaspora in the post-colonial era arouses writers’ thoughts on their own cultural identity and discourse power. There seemingly exist a phenomenon: intercultural communication of new immigrant novels, first of all, needs to rely on the presentation of homeland memory for the curiosity of other culture, and then to break such unsophisticated culture curiosity so as to take a new position to write about thoughts on problems shared by mankind.

10    An exaggerated description of homeland memory has a realistic basis. To achieve the satisfactory communication effect of their works, writers need to continue the construction of the Chinese image from the perspective of orientalism for western readers still hold an old-fashioned impression on China. Juxtaposing old-fashioned China with the contemporary western society also affects the literary creation of Chinese American writers. In the new era, the discourse system influenced by "orientalism" in the traditional Oriental context has not been improved, and yet some prejudice has been deepened after new immigrant writers' description of Chinese political life has been introduced into western society. Take Ha Jin’s novel as an example, he tells that the role committed adultery with his sister-in-law and was compelled to write a self-criticism letter by the village officials (Li, 2014). After expressing his inability to complete the letter, he preferred to live on the tramp and realized the "resurgence" by castrating himself. The narration attributes male's physical and mental incompetence to ideological repression and uses "castration" as a metaphor for sterilization and other birth control techniques.

11   As post-colonial literary thoughts have involved in the writing of new immigrant writers, the writers’ creation perception has changed obviously: the narration of homeland memory has slowly given way to the presentation of problems shared by mankind. Instead of posing invalid questions about his own Indian cultural identity, V.S.Naipaul expressed his favor of British universalism, which reflects not only the writer's intercultural identity but his attitude toward African, Indian and Central American culture. His negative attitude toward other cultures, to some extent, features colonialism (Mukherjee, 2007).

12   In general, new immigrant writers’ intercultural writing constantly involves the construction of new cultural psychology, while it realizes intercultural dialogue and interaction at various levels by virtue of its diversity and richness. The intercultural narrative method also exerts a positive impact on writers’ attempts to better restore Chinese rural society. It can be said that “such a writing method has helped new immigrant writers to sort out the collective memory—homeland memory and immigrant memory, while it complemented the modern thinking that should be reflected in the narration of novels." Multiple cultural experiences have expanded the writer's horizon, and such intercultural writing position, in some degree, has also affected writers dealing with some narrative themes with special significance.

The Other: Chinese immigrants and the literature

13   Immigration is much more than a biological concept, or a mere population issue, it is an extremely important concept of cultural study, especially, in the aspects of intercultural communication. Culture is an important factor in shaping identity. The identity of the immigrant is actually the multi-voiced communication, which ultimately shapes the dynamic process between "our images" and "the other’s " (Verhoeff, 2006). For instance, the first generation of immigrants born in China is currently the third-largest overseas immigrant group in Australia, while the Chinese students are also ranked as the largest overseas student group in Australian universities. Comparing with the cross-cultural experience of overseas Japanese, Chinese has attracted much attention in the academic community, research on how this group (including second-generation immigrants born in Australia) constructs their own cultural identity in the local culture is still very limited.^[6] The cultural identity of Australian Chinese becomes diverse and they can be divided into different types, such as segregated Chinese identity, marginal Chinese identity, integrated Sino-Australian identity, integrated Australian identity, and multi-directional association identity. The view of social constructivism believed that different cultural identities are continuously constructed in the process of interaction with the daily social environment. The findings of this study help to deepen the understanding of the process of identity formation or re-formation of individuals in a multicultural environment, which could promote intercultural or inter-ethnic understanding to build friendly coexistence. Changes in the condition of Chinese immigrants in New Zealand since the 1980s indicate that, there is a positive correlation between the social status of Chinese immigrants and their identity. The group of Chinese has a greater impact on the local life of New Zealand, while traditional Chinese culture has a greater impact on the changes there.

14In this aspect, the Chinese writings by immigrant writers are unique in the development of modern Chinese literature. As the so-called marginal and central discourse power is still complicated in the literary field, it does not wholly depend on the nationality of the writer's nationality. Actually, it is closely related to the self-identification of cultural identity. The controversy triggered commentators to re-examine the narrative of the "Third Cultural Space" in the post-colonial sense. Reversing the misplaced theoretical discourse not only loses the rationality of its interpretation but also obscures the essence of the literary.

15Different from immigrant writers in the Australia or New Zealand, Chinese American English literature research is mostly famous for the cultural identity research, some study on the ethnicity, gender, or culture, etc.; the theory of criticism is diversified, actually, it is mainly based on Western modern theories, mixed with traditional Chinese Confucian ethics. In the study of Chinese literature, cultural identity is still a hotspot. The cultural identity of Chinese American writers is closely related to their works. The comparison of Chinese literature in different periods or in different regions is also one of the topics. The study on American and Chinese literature usually put the research of immigrant writers aside. Contemporary immigrant literature research takes the immigration culture as the top theme, showing that the immigrant identity and cross-cultural experience under the globalization are becoming more necessary for a high-quality study. This phenomenon has attracted much attention from the field of post-colonial literature research. In the name of "transnational turn", the researchers believe that immigration literature should be related to the post-colonial literary criticism, which has the connection with the previous resistance posture of "reverse empire", and it would turn to the transnational narrative with the theme of translational research. This paper proposes that immigration literature should pay more attention to identity and cross-cultural studies. These themes tend to make immigration literature different from the "resistance" posture, which has been emphasized by post-colonial literature study before. However, this "turning" does not mean that immigration literature and post-colonial literature is equal. Separation occurred, but the immigration literature research and post-colonial literature study could be connected with each other on aspects of transnational themes.

Nowhere, in particular: Critical responses in writings

16   The realization of better communication effect is in line with writers’ pursuit of higher artistic achievements, which is consistent with writers’ emphasis on the expression of “homeland memory". New immigrant writers often include a description of their memory of homeland in their works, while it could believe that narration concerning "homeland" often holds the key for the works to attain higher artistic achievements. Taking a wide view of their writing on "memory of homeland", we have found that new immigrant writers often deal with the narration of memory of homeland with a tint of Oriental exoticism, as it also used the Chinese context as allegorical metaphor and metonymy to give some text of works metaphorically cultural significance. In terms of the narrative content of works, new immigrant writers tend to shape the Chinese image existing in their memory in the manner of context construction, as it sublimed their imagination about the nation by virtue of calls for modernization and thoughts on traditional ethics.

17   As new immigrant writers’ memory and imagination of life in China, the memory of homeland specifically refers to the construction of "Chinese image" regarding content, which involves the concrete impact of root-seeking consciousness on writers’ thoughts. In fact, interpreting "Chinese image" in memory of homeland needs the understanding of writers’ historical views, identity construction and intercultural identity: as a cultural concept peculiar to the Chinese, "homeland" not only refers to mountains and rivers of homeland geographically but also carries Chinese social and cultural beliefs. In the narration of novels, “homeland" has also been rendered a strong Chinese cultural flavor by writers. Being immigrants, new immigrant writers gain a sense of distance in the construction of writers’ own identity and intercultural identity. Such a sense encourages them to conduct comparative reflection and enables them to understand the inner spirit of native culture.

18   Cultural clashes between the east and the west have brought new immigrant writers’ hesitation, while the underlying reason for which is the dilemma of immigration and construction of cultural identity faced by immigrant writers. Ha Jin, a new immigrant writer, has utilized a number of concepts and works of V.S.Naipaul to discuss the dilemma of immigration and construction of identity faced by immigrant writers and relevant solutions. Take V. S. Naipaul’s masterpiece, "Two Worlds”, as an example. The writer claimed outright that his investigation was limited, and there was a difference between literary creation and social reality. “My observations are mere that—my observations.”, he said. At the same time, he also emphasized that work cannot be taken as the basis for serious investigation, because every character in a work possesses his own peculiarity, and a writer also narrates in the manner of his own (Kortenaar, 1990). Consequently, it is difficult for writers to maintain objectivity, and also unnecessary to do so. V. S. Naipaul believed that Every individual has particular circumstances, and every writer has his own way of surviving and practicing his art (Eastley, 2009).

19   As for narrative content in new immigrant novels, the need for "de-revolution" or “de-politicization" in narration requires writers to focus on the description of an individual's life experience, rather than to pursue grandiose narration in creating Chinese rural style novels, to criticize formerly prevalent collectivist values. In this regard, some think that the pattern of folk narration of China's rural society indicates the Chinese’s understanding of history, which can also be considered as a manifestation of writers’ right to interpret history without fully following the mode of official history. In fact, when constructing the exoticism of Chinese image, new immigrant writers superficially need to process the text with some hyper-text symbols, but it actually should go deeper to understand the generative mechanism of art and reconstruct the Chinese image in the works.

20   To discuss the “Chinese context” constructed by new immigrant writers needs re-understanding of the concept of "national image", which takes culture as the main content and possesses certain historical significance. Standing on the boundary of cultural communication, new immigrant writers describe objects in narration from multiple perspectives, while it could ponder over the connotation of concepts such as "nation" and "history". Taking an overview of Chinese images constructed by overseas Chinese writers, we find that the real significance of such writing practice lies in the revelation of the operating logic of Chinese culture through narration, the method of Chinese cultural identity construction in the era of globalization and the inevitable fate along with it. Therefore, the "Chinese image" referred to in this paper is the Chinese context constructed by writers through the media of other languages after they enter the cultural context of other countries. It not only carries the gene of Chinese culture but also raises the question of how immigrant writers achieve identity construction while avoiding grandiose narration. 

Thoughts on Self-hood: Masculinity and Chinese culture

21Writers’ construction of masculinity in novels often reflects their understanding of “Self-conceptions”. New immigrant writers, such as Ha Jin, Frank Chin, have constructed a Chinese male image with the embodiment masculinity demonstrated in Yin-yang theory and Pen and Sword concept: rather than completely mold a strong and robust male character prevalent in the western culture, Ha jin, in his work "The Bridegroom" (2000), has constructed a male role according to with Chinese aesthetic value by adhering to Pen and Sword concept. In his novel Donald Duk (1991), Frank Chin has confronted the question of "what is a man" in the name of the little boy Donald, examined the identity dilemma of new immigrant groups towards western culture from the perspective of the little boy Donald, and finally identified with Chinese culture in a manner of reconciliation. In the display of male characters, Frank Chin has also deliberately used "Guan Yu" as the representative of the Chinese masculinity, aiming to break through the western society's long-standing stereotype of disparaging Asian men (Xu, 2007). Such a detailed description, in fact, manifests the writer's completion of intercultural identity and the option between Chinese and western cultures.

22The construction of male characters in novels reflects writers’ concepts of intercultural identity, and the construction of gender temperament is actually a matter of cultural identity. If the Confucian ethics that underlies China is the main cultural factor that causes cultural shock and the identity dilemma to Chinese Americans, then explaining and understanding the differences between Chinese and western cultures holds the key to mediating cultural conflicts. In interpreting Chinese conceptions and constructing China's reality, new immigrant writers have objectively presented Chinese characteristics in their descriptions of memory of homeland or their life in a new land, which deviates from the mainstream of minority writers. With China as the center of their works, these new immigrant writers have dealt with Chinese traditional conceptions, assimilated western culture’s ideal thoughts on problems shared by mankind, and adhered to the tradition of digging deep into humanity in their works.

23Why are novels haunted by such culture shock? Being far away from their home country has objectively blurred new immigrant writers' impressions and memory of China. As a result, the concept of "Space" becomes the main philosophical concept for new immigrant writers to understand specific circumstances in the process of handling intercultural dialogue. As the core concept of postmodernism, the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre offered the concept of “Space” a concrete interpretation, which theoretically includes the perceptible first space, the conceived second space and the third space that is constantly constructed and reconstructed. For new immigrant writers who are at the boundary of cultural communication, various spatial forms, in theory, provide a space of discourse for their dialogue and also require writers to reflect on the connection between the real world and spiritual space in the field of social and cultural theory.

24The dilemma of intercultural identity confronted by new immigrant writers directly affects the expression of novels texts and consequently works of the novel at the literary level sink into a state of “Inter-subjectivity”, which the philosopher Gilles Deleuze has carefully annotated in A Thousand Plateaus. Deleuze has graphically interpreted the richness of spatial dimension from the perspective of post-structuralism, while it has emphasized that the spatial relationships are no longer monotonous linear series, but feature fragmentation yet assembly in a manner of "tubers" connection. The complex relationship of cultural identity affects the attitude of new immigrant writers towards culture, which in turn determines how they present texts. Take the construction of masculinity on such male roles in writings as an example, the thoughts on selfhood would be initially predicted on aesthetic rather than simple mimetic imperatives. Though not having completely abandoned Chinese cultural values in intercultural identity, new immigrant writers have chosen to steer clear of part of Chinese traditional culture on many issues, assimilated the universalism of western society, and created a series of works centering around the new world.

Yellow Face: The Cross-cultural view and thoughts

25   As a successful immigrant writer, David Henry Hwang is the first Chinese American playwright to win the "Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre" in the United States (Irmscher, 1998). Most of the literary commentators are concerned about his famous work "M. Butterfly", but little research has been done on his other outstanding plays. Moreover, most of the review articles analyze the racial, identity and gender politics from the perspectives of deconstructionism and orientalism. Few people pay attention to the rich symbols used in the script from the structuralist semiotics or discourse of cultural studies, which are linked to characterization and cultural identity issues. Therefore, this thesis attempts to use the method of semiotics, systematically interpreting David Henry Hwang's three works in combination with Stuart Hall's representation or Roland Barthes's theories of mythology: especially on the "Fresh off the boat", "M. Butterfly" and recent work "Yellow Face". By analyzing the various symbols in these three works, the meaning of symbolic construction and the process of characterization of culture, the relationship between symbolic or mythological representation, the cultural identity and the mobility of it are all clarified. 

26On Roland Barthes's theories of mythology, the script of David Henry Hwang can be seen as a struggle, correction, and negotiation with the mainstream cultural representation system (Kerr, 1991). This article makes the symbols used in the three scripts as an entry point to sort out the three stages of Chinese cultural identity exploration—conflict, subversion, and transcendence, and then demonstrate David Henry Hwang’s keen insight into Chinese cultural identity, while he is deeply concerned about the dilemma of survival. David Henry Hwang innovatively introduces Chinese traditional cultural symbols from Peking Opera, of which the typical representatives are Mulan and Guan Gong (Guan Yu關羽). On details, he revealed the internal conflict and identity crisis of Chinese in Fresh off the boat. Steve incarnates Guan Gong to adhere to traditional Chinese culture; Grace is deeply attached to Chinese culture between the two cultures; Dell abandons its original identity and nationality, and he strives to integrate into the mainstream American society. David Henry Hwang clarified his point of view by describing the three ethnic Chinese Americans: he thinks that Chinese Americans must establish an independent cultural identity because they are indispensable for the respect or inheritance of Chinese traditional culture. More rich symbols are used in "M. Butterfly" (Chon-Smith, 2014).

27Through the meaningful use of typical character symbols, clothing symbols and musical symbols, David Henry Hwang reveals the stereotyped image constructed by the mainstream cultural system and successfully subverts it. "Yellow Face" combines the symbols and identity issues on the stage with some real events of the 20th century, which vividly interprets identity mobility. Finally, the following conclusions are drawn below: due to the far-reaching influence of the mainstream cultural system, Chinese Americans, although, still struggled to seek independent cultural identity, and still cannot control their own destiny by reinventing themselves. In addition to the various myths and deliberate distortions created by the mainstream culture, the psychology of the Orientals who immigrated to the West has also caused the difficulty of seeking Chinese identity to a certain extent. Therefore, for Chinese Americans, it is only by getting rid of the ideological domination of the western dominant cultural symbolic system, they should understand the constructive and fluidity of identity to establish its independent cultural identity. 

28   Among the writings in Yellow Face, David Henry Hwang has interpreted some real events of the 20th century, from the perspective of Roland Barthes’s theory, the Reality Effect. Most of the cultural symbols in "Yellow Face" are of cross-cultural writings, which refer to the yellow face in American movies and operas (arranging white actors to perform Asian characters), as it is a symbol of open racism. Through the exploration of the various symbols in these three scripts, David Henry Hwang deciphered that identity issues are still the experimental phase of world cultural integration. In the United States, this problem is much more complicated. As a writer with dual identities, Hwang has always been concerned about the difficulties faced by Chinese Americans throughout his writing career. Therefore, the purpose of his writing seems to be more political, rather than literary, which more concerned with social issues, rather than human development. The inner struggle of roles is what he often criticizes. However, it is undeniable that David Henry Hwang always pays attention to the basic responsibility of a writer, although he did not give a solution to the thorny problem of identity, his script kept readers and viewers to concern about identity issues and continually pondered the misunderstandings attached to identity issues from mainstream discourse. David Henry Hwang has never stopped paying attention to the plight of Asian Americans. David Henry Hwang said that the search for identity is a lifelong journey, full of long roads and detours that have never been taken. A series of questions have been raised again and again, but perhaps there never be an exact way, in short, David Henry Hwang and many other immigrant writers all tried to criticize the United States and find ways to change it.

The Immigrant Writing: Between History and Literature

29   As a method of analyzing modern culture, structuralism began in France since the 1950s. The most important person who applied structuralist semiotics to the study of modern culture was Roland Barthes. Behind the construction of semiotics, Roland Barthes has broken through the frame of traditional cultural criticism and focused on elegant literature, while he also analyzed popular culture as a text of criticism. It is commendable (Olin, 2002). However, the analysis of popular culture on semiotics has paid too much attention to the decoding of symbols, while he ignored the production of symbols that are equally important for the generation of meaning, that is, the encoding of symbols. While structuralism absorbs some important concepts of Saussure's linguistics, it also accepts the shortcomings of synchronic research and ignored diachronic research, so that the path of semiotics research turns narrower.

30Near far from the centenary of Roland Barthes, born on November 12^th. 1915, in Cherbourg, the structuralism introduced by him deciphered the essence in a new way of studying culture and attended to surfaces, in the interplay between the ‘culture-system’ and its inhabitants. Arguing the structuralist view that culture is a ‘palimpsest of many different structures’, while Barthes’s definition of the ‘reality effect’ helps to conceive of how the settings are initially predicated on aesthetic. Alongside immigrant writer studies with its incorporation of non-canonical texts, provided one formidable theoretical justification and approach for the study of inter-culture or cross-culture. Subsequent essays in Barthes’s studies used a semiotic or aesthetic approach to study texts, photographs, roles, and, of course, culture system after Barthes offered the classic methods on that subject. Anticipating the rise of culture in immigrant life, some special questions concerning the generation gap or culture shock, or the new participatory culture in digital environments, all call for critical thinking on the current phenomenon (Scheie, 2000). In some writings of Chinese new immigrant writers, the books always resonated well with the mission of attacking what they perceived as academic elitism and encouraging many voices, in many modes, to be raised in the study of inter-culture. 

31  As a part of literary theory, Monier-Bérenguier(1986) believed Barthes’s formulation for the ‘reality effect’ is that ‘the very absence of the signified’ turns to be the very signifier of realism. Not only in the writings of Chinese new immigrant writers but among the works of Kazuo Ishiguro, the futile descriptions or some brand-naming of places have been away from the joy of fidelity to detail (Walkowitz, 2007). However, it is inevitable that in a text that avoids the writings of fabulists, or the sense of historian which comes into focus, while there would be a creeping back of the referent. Among the works of Chinese new immigrant writers, there is a different sort of convergence of signifier and referent, which mainly contributed to the ‘reality effect’ of the works on the aspect of aesthetic.

32   Roland Barthes's "The Empire of Signs"(1970) and other works combine the abstract interpretation of semiotics with the study of comparative culture. He has carried out ethical and cultural reflections on the unique symbols of oriental culture, which is related to the study of Taoism and Buddhism in oriental culture. He gives life to the cultural materials of daily life, while he emphasizes the "writing" of cultural phenomena and the "emptiness" of Zen. Based on the interpretation of Roland Barthes' metaphorical world, it is necessary to analyze the composition and assembly of images in oriental culture, such as Japan, China, and Iran. For instance, the implicitness and polysemy in oriental writings and novels would be meaningful to explain it, which referred to the orientalism or the meaning of "nihilism". Therefore, in the analysis of culture study, the unique aesthetic value of immigrant writings should be pointed out.

33   The existence of "others" in the immigrant writings are obvious, while the interaction between "self" and "the other" not only shows the different connotations from new immigrant writers or the earlier but also shows the exploration in the globalization or multiculturalism. The Chinese immigrant writer research has received much attention from the academy in recent years, of which the topics and works involved in the list have been more extensive. It is able to focus on the groups of new immigrant writers now, by analyzing the narratives of writings to interpret how immigrant writers reconstruct the consciousness and individual identity from his own experience or cultural memory. Some phenomena and characteristics in the new immigrant novels are proposed here, in this article.

Le Degré Zéro De l'écriture: The immigrants’ viewpoint

34Zero writing is regarded as a rhetorical method, which referred to the theory in “Le degré zéro de l’écriture” with a clear meaning, while this kind of writing does not lose any meaning (Just, 2007). In the dilemma of historical writing or made-up stories, whether zero-degree writing can become a savior to save novel writing is not clear, as this way of writing can support the mainstream values which could show the writer's unique thoughts and vivid writing on some historical events. Many short works in immigrant writers' novels, Under the Red Flag Stories by Ha Jin, usually come out in such a way: trying to reduce unnecessary retouching, paying more attention to weakening the emotions when it presents the narratives. In the content of the novels, Ha Jin uses the film or movies as the background stories, combined with the writer's life experience, in order to obtain the unique rhetorical effect of the art, which may enrich the "American spirit" in the works. Such art forms require writers to reconcile language and culture, which rely on a more objective expression to convey the story in an original way. Thus, "zero writing" may become a more operational choice here.

35Ha Jin, the simplified name is 金雪飞, is a Chinese-American poet and novelist, using Ha Jin as the pen name. He sets his stories in China, and he grew up in the chaos of early communist China. In the late 1980s, Ha Jin may not focus on the use of language, the choice of style or the orientation of values in writings, but on the literary and historical context of novels. In this aspect, the most typical representative of this model is the traumatic narratives that may belong to the writings of Shi Tiesheng (史铁生) who are good at “intransitive writing”. This kind of narrative mode usually has such characteristics: firstly, it abandons the dualistic values that have existed in Chinese society for a long time; second, it effectively updates the use of the language among the novels, which catch firmly the features in the era of the 1980s. 

36The characteristic of Ha Jin's intransitive narrative lies in its memory-based narrative writings, a kind of self-referential writing. This kind of narrative requires writers to apply the zero-degree writing mode as much as possible, to get rid of the politics or cultural discourse, while the writings just return to the impression, in order to show the fact or the facts in memory. Through the contribution of such new ideas, and inaccurate aesthetic expression is also manifested by the "zero rhetoric" or inferiority writing style under this narrative mode. In the book, Waiting by Ha Jin, "waiting" is a verb that is often used for the metaphor of self-deconstruction in such intransitive writing. It is a question of no answer. Judging from the results of novel narratives, the novel has shown an open deconstruction on a limited perspective. The intransigence narrative of the novels avoids the interference and constructs an incomparable "impression" on the narrative space. In this narrative space, the writer applied the zero-degree writing and the intransitive writing methods as the fulcrum of Archimedes, to incite the dual oppositional values of the impregnable origin. Lastly, the writings applied the pluralism as the new starting point to activate the new writing style.

37As far as the writings in immigrant writers' novels are concerned, Chinese immigrant novel in the late 1980s faced a crisis of imperialism, because the original political ecology and mainstream values were challenged, the novels were written in history or memory narrative strategy. There is a tendency for the immigrant writers to be hollow in artistic expression. "What is real memory?" In the practice of impression narratives, immigrant writers collected their own memory about the motherland and restored the historical facts that the novel wants to embody into the writings. Usually, the writers displayed the plot of "I" in "personalized writing". Objectively speaking, the impression narrative has a disadvantage on expression that is no reliable historical evaluation standard has been established here. Therefore, this unreliable narrative style appears among the texts of the novel in a unique way. The process is to show the rich aesthetic value of the works. Therefore, the memory writing method adopted by immigrant writings should be non-objective, which combines with the writing characteristics of the "personal writing" paranoia, a writing method commonly used by Chinese writers in the 1990s. Finally, it presents an anti-singularity artistic feature, which assumed an uncertain cultural metaphor of the time (Stotsky, 1995).

38The impression narrative mode adopted by immigrant writers is mainly embodied in his historical novels. The novel "Waiting" is a typical case for such memory writing. In this work, lots of aerial history fragments made the characteristics or roles clearly expressed. Purely individual expression is presented in the novel "Waiting", roles construction has been all put in a gender-oriented narrative manner. The subordinate status of women and the attitude to the marriage of soldiers have all become the main driving force in narratives. As far as the narrative purpose is concerned, "Waiting" is also separated from the concept of essentialism. It does not spend too much energy on thoughts about the historical fact itself, but just to present the authenticity of memory and impress the reader a lot. In addition, at the level of characters or roles design, "Waiting" also focuses on personal experience, while it does not over-discuss the political significance of the protagonist's military identity in a specific era. Finally, as far as the background is concerned, this book takes the story away from the complicated discourse, while the writer just turned to give the story a historical value with some impressive roles. In dealing with the problem of memory writing or historical narrative, Ha Jin follows the clue of "impression" and constructs historical facts in a zero-degree way of writing. He makes the story according to a non-essential expression method for the dynamic narrative effect.

39At the same time, Ha Jin's creation was influenced by contemporary art and the gradual evolution of critical discourse. In his works, he began to demonstrate his pioneering literary criticism. From the background, many writers since the mid-1980s, including Ha Jin, pay more attention to the connection between literature and reality in the art performance, and they update the concept of writing accordingly, especially in poetry creation. Obviously, at that time, as a representative of Chinese immigrant writers active in the 1990s, Ha Jin was undoubtedly influenced by the turn of this literary development. Not only did he realize the transformation in cultural shock among immigrants, but his writing concept also had a certain degree of distortion. From the perspective of psychoanalysis, artists are often of the introverted intuitional cloakers whose aesthetic ideals are full of original images, they usually slipped into the quagmire of anti-aesthesia because of strong utopian aspirations. According to Althusser's theory, the difference between anti-skopostheorie and teleology comes from the comments on Marx's dialectics and traditional philosophy, while it is commonly based on Hegel's dialectics. The former distinguishes the object of understanding from the object of reality to deny the traditional ones. The dualistic opposition model has realized the fundamental shift of epistemology. Returning to the historical reality established by this philosophical trend of thought, the rules of world operation enter a complex and unbalanced structure from a simple linear context. Any understandings of historical facts are becoming a simple judgment rather than a complex explanation of the whole. This has led to an obvious difference between immigrant writers’ historical writings and the "dual opposition" history novels. Characters, roles, plots, and environments all appeared in the novels are combined with complicated contents, and the relationship between characters is no longer simple, instead, but to hide more complex reasons (Topolski, 1987). 

Egotism: The immigrant literature and its features

40Intransitive narratives, or inexpressible writings, occupy an important position in historical or literary narratives. Especially for memory recalls of traumatic situations, inferior narratives often produce unique artistic effects. In history novels, the dialogues of characters and testimonies need to be realistic at the literary level. It is necessary to verify their reliability or some certain values by the narratives (Garber, 1977). However, due to historical facts or dusty seals, the writings are all suppressed by mainstream political discourse, the history or the facts in the expression are often only one-side, losing the stereoscopic nature of the facts and gradually becoming the simplification or the simplified version. In the aspect of literary narrative, the writer's personal memory has been certainly subjective. Therefore, there is no legal testimony status, but as a witness or bystander, the writer's memory is irrefutable in terms of authenticity because of its rhetorical strategy. A thin layer of gauze was established between real history and made-up history. Intransitive writing can be understood as a direct expression without distance. Any human factors are excluded among the author, the text and the reader, with it causing some kind of texts to become detached.

41It is the poet who first abandoned the writing method of "dual opposition" in the 1980s. Because of the ideology, the Chinese before the 1980s used the essential language to write stories, but the later abandoned it. The rise of the new poetry writing method has pushed Chinese poets to adopt a "non-essential" strategy. This method has also become the main force for the development of Chinese poetry in the new era. After the 1990s, this habit of writing from poetry gradually became the main writing style of Chinese writers. The personal writing on exploring the value of self-life has thus become the main writing method of an era. Among the Chinese immigrant writers, it is not uncommon for the writers who witnessed this literary turn. Chinese immigrant writers deeply participated in this change of Chinese literature, and they usually inherited this paragraph in the way of English novel creation. In some of the short works, Ha Jin talked about the changes that the Chinese experienced a lot at the end of the 20th century, he shared with his personal experience in military camps and college life, and then he restored the historical thoughts into his novels.

42In terms of artistic effects, the way of writing adopted by Chinese immigrant writers undoubtedly echoes the pulse of the history in a dynamic way, and they sublimated the cultural metaphor of this narrative mode by means of historical writing, which provided readers with a valuable talking about the memory (Bann, 1987). The novels are usually based on a special system. Chinese immigrant writers might hide some social truths in the corner of Chinese rural society. They usually put it in front of the reader and give the reader an impactful reading experience.

43Some history novels of immigrant writers, usually focus on memory narrative, and they are also inevitably falling into the "unreliable narrator" when the writers try to restore the facts (Spencer, 2006). How to grasp the authenticity in the dialogues between reality and history, "impression" has become a difficult but meaningful theme. How does history reappear in novels? In the theoretical discussion of literary narrative, the literary works represented by " history novels" are based on the development of new narrative patterns, with it displaying historical facts hidden in a certain period of time in the past, the writings usually rely on rhetoric to elaborately produce good works. Narrative contents finally achieved the recurrence of historical events (Stefanovska, 2009). Therefore, the reappearance of historical context in immigrant writer's works undoubtedly depends on the writer's memory narrative, whether the writings are based on "impression" or not is the key, but actually, more works often depends on the form of the writer's presentation, that is, what kind of rhetoric is adopted. As a result of the set of ideas, these writing strategies affect and determine the level of the novel narrative at a much better level.

Historical Writings: Memory gathering and the expression

44In recent years, research on the historical narrative or memory narrative of immigrant writers seems to be a spotlight in the relative study of novels (Hoxie, 1906). Approximately, this phenomenon is closely related to the achievements of immigrant writers, from Kazuo Ishiguro to Doris Lessing, from V. S. Naipaul to the Chinese American writers, who all repeatedly won international awards. Immigrant writers broke through the stereotype of "distributed writers" in a new way (Carroll, 2012). Standing on the in-between space of two cultures, the narrative style adopted by immigrant writers is bound to be different: the unique cultural identity, cross-cultural themes and the situation of immigrant writers will all be taken by them on writings. Especially in history novels, immigrant writers often participate in the narratives of some certain ceremonies, which could reorganize the facts of fragments by imagination or memory, while it could describe the history of their home country or immigrant country as a bystander or a divergent. At the same time, the “ritual” seems to be naturally associated with memory. It advertises the significant value of certain memory fragments for individual life or collective life, which fixes it in a memory node in a “rite” manner.

45The immigrant writer carries out the historical narrative around the topic of "impression", which is a fragment of the ritual in the writings, with it trying to restore the indescribable fragments by the rhetoric methods. The subjective characteristics of the memory narrative and the authenticity of historical facts seem to be incompatible. Take the memory narrative as a major method in the short story, this way of telling history is obviously inconsistent with the mainstream narrative mode. The writer focuses on the protagonist's personal gains and losses, with it using the small incision that focuses on the individual rather than the macro narrative. From the perspective of collective life, this kind of writing has created a separate concern. The narrative path of individual experience is more feasible.

46The memory fragments of immigrant writers are connected with the writer's personal life experience, once it was separated from the field of pure literary narration into the historical narrative, and it would face the question of reliability: Is it representative? Is the content of social life well-expressed in the text? Do the writings obey contemporary mainstream values? In the main chapters of Ha Jin’s novel, the writings usually focused on Chinese urban life in the 1980s or 1990s. Unlike many famous novels of immigrant writers, Ha Jin’s book contains many life experiences of the author at the level of novel creation, which adds many historical elements into the content of the subject. In this case, the writer's attitude towards history or his literature has been different. The strategy or writing method will also affect the content of historical narratives in the novel.

47The core of the artistic effect among the history novels is definitely of historical authenticity that is the subjectively constructed, while it does wholly obey the realism of readers. This paradoxical reading method is of a fictional space in which history novels could transcend real history writing. In the creation of the immigrant writings, another method was adopted to focus on the fate of the small characters, who are put in the historical background in a way that is closed to the random history. The anti-fact written history novels wrote it through the "what if" (if history is not the case) skills on the basis of real historical logic, while the reasonable interpretation of the characters’ fate could then be of the novel theme.

48Chinese immigrant writer's novels are often constructed by his experience. In the near future, the historical narrative contents in the novels may not have a single, harmonious or internal unified system. Any text cannot refer to external facts, and only parts of texts can be used for intertextuality. This concept undoubtedly proves the rationality of the main theme among Chinese immigrant writer's works in the historical view. The stories hidden under the mainstream historical texts are reinterpreted in an intermittent and contradictory manner, while they have been publicly spoken about the fictional features of literary narratives. This kind of narrative undoubtedly has its flaws, but it dares to recognize that the accidental factors and individual values are undoubtedly a driving force for the writing development of social history. From another aspect, it can be seen that no matter how rebellious the history has been pluralized, no matter how many kinds of literary rhetoric the writer uses in the imagination space of novels, it is not a rebellion against the particular speech or expression dilemma. This kind of impression-oriented writing of individual experience has a strong practical significance, which could promote writers to reflect more on historical narratives. Thus, is the history well-opened to be expressed? Is there uncertainty in the novel writing? Is the history coherent in writings? This requires the writer to produce a positive way to make up stories.

49About in the 1920s, the new Chinese history novels represented by "New Stories" received much attention from the academy. The works of Chinese immigrant writers that pioneered the creation of history novels would be dealing with history. The problem of fact does not stop at a simple origin repeat of a historical event, but to create a rich historical atmosphere with the art of re-creation. In the short story collection, Chinese immigrant writers did not use a lot of mythological stories to create a certain atmosphere, but other immigrant writers have plenty of experiences in creating this historical sense of writings. The woman prefers to use historical materials to create an artistic atmosphere of oriental mysticism. For Chinese immigrant writers, the oriental writings that cater to the tastes of western readers obviously have their limitations. The mythical metaphor often fails to cover the writer's historical writing intentions. Instead, it will fall into the mud of artistic absurdity or improper description. As far as the theme of the "Tangshan Earthquake" is concerned, the works and related writers created around the theme often arrive at an almost unified narrative, and they have not deeply reflected on human nature. This narrative model certainly has its necessity, but as a new attempt or breakthrough, the Chinese immigrant writer uses a realistic brushstroke to describe the personal experience of the protagonist, with it abandoning purely personal writing. The single tone of the narrative and the impact of this way on the reader is obvious, while the change of narrative mode produces a wonderful artistic effect.

50Different from the stylistic features of orthodox history novels, Chinese new immigrant writer's works do not pursue some end-of-life feelings or historical crises, but at the narrative level, they still pursue a purely historical narrative and draw a certain historical fragment by artistic means. At the root, the historical concept of this novel is closely related to "new historiography". The debate between them also plays a fundamental role in the construction of such modern historical novels. The work is not structurally a pure history novel, but several contemporary historical events play an important role in the evolution of the plot. Finally, unlike the historical text of formal circulation, the narrative background is closer to some new history stories among immigrant writings, with different people carefully restoring the narrative objects in the background. On the whole, the novel adopts the method of memory narrative while satisfying the writer's expressions. Based on the historical facts, it constructs the narrative content with personal life experience, therefore, it should be related to historical novels. In this aspect, Xu(2007) deciphered the life value of Chinese by a case study on Frank Chin. Thus, the universal value of the books may have been received by Chinese and Western readers in communication.

Bridge-Building: The Transnational Writings

51Immigrant writers' novels adopted the rhetorical strategy in writings, while the Chinese film has been the background that is combined with the writer's life experience. It is enriching the American spirit of the work, in order to obtain the unique rhetorical effect. As the in-betweens, Chinese immigrant writer is also good at using the impression-oriented narratives, with it extracting from the mainstream memory and cultural discourse. The writings rushed from the impression to seek the expression of new ideas.

52The tendency of individual writing in the 1990s caused an uproar in the literary world. On the one hand, poetry scholars performed avant-garde poetry on the identification of collective writing and directed reversal. On the other hand, they focused too much on private writing, and thus, personal life is conceptually covered with personal writing, which darkens its positive side. What is personal writing? In the special era of the 1990s, personal writing often expressed a literary discourse practice that individual feelings, alienated ideology and universal values. In this kind of narrative mode, it could not be equated with narrow "private writing." Although personal writing is closely related to the transformation of Chinese society in the 1990s, Chinese writer participates in the cultural concept of thinking about the era of intellectual reorientation. In terms of its writing style, personal writing is not the majority.

53Among the Chinese immigrant writings, this kind of writing strategy that focuses on personal life is obviously influenced by the trend of “personal writing”. In the writings on collective life, some scenes have been exhibited on books: the kindergarten and the propaganda department. The writers put personal destiny in the collectivist discourse. As far as literary writings are concerned, readers can easily refer to the three forms of personalization, including personal writing, female novels, and the so-called fracture writings. Definitely, the personal-oriented writings cannot be simply classified as a kind of lofty resistance or rebellion, but they should be categorized into a discourse practice, which aimed at purifying the text and heading for a better expression effect. In the writings of Chinese immigrant writers, this kind of narrative may lead to the “fragmentation” of historical speech, while the importance of many details is deliberately elevated up and the integrity of the narrative is also affected. Gere(2001) believed that these writings are separated from the narratives and gradually becoming a kind of purely personal writing. The narrative center of this era has constructed and reconstructed the system of the narrative. Actually, purely individualized writing has its objective reasons for the alienation of narratives. "The lack of understanding of history or the resistance to collectivist discourse will make writers avoid the cancellation of grandeur and prefer choosing narrative methods to write."

54For example, the book "Waiting" by Ha Jin takes the Korean War as the background and makes bold assumptions about the fate of the protagonist. This novel designs a story that the male role who has waited for his lover for 18 years. He undertook the effects of the Korean War, and hardly hold the expectation of his late-life or love. In order to express the details of North Korea’s battlefield life, the novel also chose poetry as the main expression way to map the psychological images of the people at that time.

55Therefore, the focus on micro-details has also caused the new changes in narrative, with it affecting the completeness of historical writing. During the 1960s, the lack of grand narrative in the writings of historical novels was also related to the background of those times. After the new policy in the Chinese mainland, the dominant concept of history has gradually shifted from consensus to pluralism. History is no longer portrayed as a single edge with a unified tone around the core. It was instead planned as a more liberal narrative. On the whole, the grand narrative always holds a constant writing center, and in this case, pluralism is usually multi-faceted. The writer's personal attempt can also provide a new choice of conceptual understanding of the historical narrative. Although this practice can't completely surpass the traditional narrative style, in terms of its value, the writer has indeed found a more valuable writing strategy between the grand narrative and the before (Applegarth, 2015).

 Conclusion

56The attempt to express the in-between condition in realistic novels has always faced the dilemma of literary writing. In the mid-to-late 1980s, the new realistic novels of Chinese literary circles fully reflected the life of ordinary Chinese people. They were ingenious in the selection of narrative perspectives, while the types were classified as "post-new realistic" novels. Depicting individual life will inevitably make the objective writings convert into the writer's description. As far as the development of "new realistic novels" is concerned, a simple recording of the historical fragments in the early stage is obviously difficult to reach the "poetic dwelling" proposed by Heidegger. In the books of immigrant writers, they also record the individual lives of ordinary people in a realistic way. The valued narrative strategy of advocating the process satisfies the specific requirements of literature. On the other hand, the refutation or resistance to power discourse mainly produced the depiction of individual experience in literary practice. In this kind of writing, the embodiment of poetry undoubtedly requires the writer to further improve the practice of writing. It is necessary for the writer to present a realistic narrative in purely personal writing, while the writer needs to extract it from the trivial life experience. In an imaginary zone that links individual life to the collective, it would provide writers with poetic or aesthetics effects.

57As a philosophical concept of German philosopher Heidegger, existentialism is closely related to the state of “Auf dem Zuge zu”. Heidegger even states that “this kind of guidance is our essence”. In the study of poetics, some kinds of writing have been praised by poetic scholars for its philosophy strategy. This form of writing seems to fit some of the poetry creation, which is usually "hidden" in artistic expression. Between them, this writing method seems to have received a certain range of recognition. The era in which the writer lived coincided with the transformation of Chinese society. At that time, the reorientation of intellectuals has undertaken other effects. In the way of writing, the literary world also showed a tendency to move from collectivist discourse to individualized writing. Therefore, Chinese immigrant writers also received and accepted the identity of an immigrant. Among the works, more attention has been paid to the personal destiny of roles in novels, rather than the contents of the collective life. This kind of writing eases the pressure from the ideology and achieves the purpose of immigrant writers. Therefore, this way of personal writing is a way for writers to show the artistic or aesthetic value of their works. The ultimate goal is to increase the poetic and artistic value of the books.

58In terms of the concept for guiding the intertextuality of immigrant writers' novels, the historical and meta-historical nature of the works may be one of the explanations. Especially for classical novels or history novels, the historical situation of this kind of literature could be seen further. American historical philosopher Hayden White believes that "history is an extended text", there must be a connection between historical texts and literary texts. The literary practice of historical and new history novels have been fully verified. As far as the writing method is concerned, the reason why "intertextuality" exists in the text is mainly for its cross-text features. As it is well documented, the text can mostly reflect the "intertextuality". In terms of the “repetitive narrative”, it repeatedly expresses images, characters or plots with special rhetoric, which then produced an artistic effect.

59In the mid-1980s, the realist literature ushered in a climax. On the one hand, it inherited the realist literary tradition. On the one hand, it was rooted in history and derived the cultural value from the works. As far as the artistic values are concerned, the critics held no shortage of "cold" words in summing up the artistic features of realistic novels. This may be derived from the rhetoric in the works, which refers to some kind of operation in practice. In terms of its realistic artistic strategy, the narrative method or the way of desalination can produce the oriental aesthetics effects that conform to the value of Chinese culture, “sorrow without hurting”. Thus, the work is full of restrained and elegant poetry. As far as artistic realism is concerned, this concept is closely related to visual art in books. How to create poetry by imitating the paintings, it mainly depends on the distance between reality and fiction. It also depends on the author's subjective choice, that is, it said that “painting is appropriate”. Most of the novels among immigrants were born in this era, and they should be influenced by contemporary realism works in aspects of art. In this case, the "zero rhetoric" writing method of restraint expresses the struggle of individual destiny, which thus acquires a unique aesthetic value or philosophical significance. It also helps writers achieve the goal of transcending individualized writing or collectivist discourse.

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